Get "Error Writing Registration Count..." error in BES log

system · October 22, 2009, 1:25am

(imported topic written by arpotu91)

Hello,

I’m getting an error in the BES log when I try to install the 7.2 client on some machines. The error is “Error Writing Registration Count to GlobalOptions”…

We try the installation, which fails to create all of the BES Client directories. We then reinstall (without using BESRemove tool), and the client directories are created, but the registry entries are not. We then look in the BES Client log and see the error above.

As a test, we start regedit and create a “Big” test key under HKLM\Software, which works fine.

Any Ideas? Can the registry be locked such that the BES Client can’t write to it? How can I check this?

Arpotu.

BenKus · October 22, 2009, 6:20am

(imported comment written by BenKus)

That is very strange… I don’t think I have seen that before…

The key it is trying to write to is: “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\BigFix\EnterpriseClient\GlobalOptions”

Is there any sort of weird permissions in your registry or might their be any agents/services that would be interfering with reg writes (like AV or other endpoint agents?)

Ben

system · October 22, 2009, 4:56pm

(imported comment written by arpotu91)

Historically, no. I believe that if there were a tool deployed for this customer, it would be on all of their servers, but we’re seeing this on only a handful of their machines. Most (if not all) of the machines are not new to the environment.

system · October 22, 2009, 6:02pm

(imported comment written by arpotu91)

Ben,

I received some feedback from our midrange support team. Apparently this is happening with various servers, including those which are not running Bigfix, and they are working to determine the root cause. In their (eloquent) words:

“They are all IIS boxes that for some reason are either writing too much to the registry or are just jacked up.”

So, it is not a Bigfix issue.

Thanks,

Arpotu.

system · October 22, 2009, 9:51pm

(imported comment written by curth)

I am getting the same error message on one of my servers, too. I stopped and restarted the BigFix client service and get the following:

At 13:49:35 -0400 -

ShutdownListener

SetupListener completed successfully

At 13:53:00 -0400 -

Error writing registration count to GlobalOptions.

At 13:53:20 -0400 -

Client shutdown (Service manager stop request)

At 13:53:20 -0400 -

Starting client version 7.2.4.60

FIPS mode disabled by default.

Restricted mode

Error writing registration count to GlobalOptions.

Unrestricted mode

Configuring listener without wake-on-lan

At 13:53:23 -0400 -

SetupListener completed successfully

At 13:53:25 -0400 -

User interface process unable to launch (22.1245) for user ‘’. Retrying every 30 seconds.

User interface process started for user ‘hudsonc!’

At 13:53:56 -0400 -

Error writing registration count to GlobalOptions.

At 13:53:58 -0400 -

Error writing registration count to GlobalOptions.

At 13:54:43 -0400 -

Error writing registration count to GlobalOptions.

ERROR: Unexpected exception during relay selection.

Unrestricted mode

Configuring listener without wake-on-lan

At 13:54:44 -0400 -

ShutdownListener

SetupListener completed successfully

At 13:55:52 -0400 -

Error writing registration count to GlobalOptions.

At 13:56:30 -0400 -

Error writing registration count to GlobalOptions.

At 13:57:02 -0400 -

Error writing registration count to GlobalOptions.

At 13:57:03 -0400 -

Error writing registration count to GlobalOptions.

ERROR: Unexpected exception during relay selection.

Unrestricted mode

Configuring listener without wake-on-lan

ShutdownListener

SetupListener completed successfully

At 14:00:26 -0400 -

Error writing registration count to GlobalOptions.

At 14:01:12 -0400 -

Error writing registration count to GlobalOptions.

At 14:01:44 -0400 -

Error writing registration count to GlobalOptions.

At 14:01:45 -0400 -

Error writing registration count to GlobalOptions.

ERROR: Unexpected exception during relay selection.

Unrestricted mode

Configuring listener without wake-on-lan

ShutdownListener

SetupListener completed successfully

system · October 22, 2009, 9:57pm

(imported comment written by curth)

More info . . . I uninstalled the BigFix Client from this server and reinstalled it. The log is still showing the “rror writing registration count to GlobalOptions.” message. The server OS is Windows 2003 Standard x64 Edition.

system · October 22, 2009, 10:07pm

(imported comment written by curth)

More info . . . also seeing this on Windows 2003 x86 (32-bit) servers as well.

BenKus · October 23, 2009, 2:53am

(imported comment written by BenKus)

Hey curth,

Our initial thoughts are that this computer has serious problems and it is not allow appropriate registry access (writing in particular).

In Arpotu’s similar case, something else is going on that isn’t related to BigFix… Is there any indication that there are other problematic activities on this computer? For instance, if you can manually (or write a small script) outside of BigFix to set a registry value, are you seeing failures?

Ben

system · October 23, 2009, 8:35pm

(imported comment written by curth)

Ben,

When I log into this or other systems with the same message, I can write to the registry without any issues. However, the System Event Log shows Event ID 333 which indicates registry problems. I will look into that with Microsoft. Thanks!

Curt

system · November 5, 2009, 4:56pm

(imported comment written by TommyG91)

Did anyone figure out how to fix this problem yet? I am having the same issue on at least one server. Win2000 SP4

Thanks

Tom

system · November 17, 2009, 2:49am

(imported comment written by chalverson91)

I am also experiencing the same issue. Still no solution?

BenKus · November 17, 2009, 5:08am

(imported comment written by BenKus)

Hey guys,

We have not found any answers for this issue other than arpotu above that indicates that the issue was something unrelated. So either this issue is related to BigFix in some way that we haven’t been able to find OR that BigFix logs happen to be an easy way to spot this problem that is occurring on random computers.

We looked at the code that writes these values and on the surface, we can’t find any obvious reason it is failing (it is very unclear why writing simple reg values with a fully privileged account would ever fail).

Ben

system · February 11, 2010, 9:35pm

(imported comment written by SystemAdmin)

I also am seeing this problem more and more, I have a dozen or so box’s with this error,

At 12:42:49 -0600 -

Error writing registration count to GlobalOptions.

ERROR: Unexpected exception during relay selection.

Unrestricted mode

once the box gets this error it wont report back to the BigFix server, Im running 7.2.5.22 server and clients

this issue seems to have started when I loaded this version, I have also removed the client and reinstalled them, same issue

also checked and reset the permissions on the reg

At 12:42:49 -0600 -

Error writing registration count to GlobalOptions.

ERROR: Unexpected exception during relay selection.

Unrestricted mode

Configuring listener without wake-on-lan

At 12:45:33 -0600 -

Error writing registration count to GlobalOptions.

ERROR: Unexpected exception during relay selection.

Unrestricted mode

Configuring listener without wake-on-lan

At 12:49:18 -0600 -

Error writing registration count to GlobalOptions.

ERROR: Unexpected exception during relay selection.

Unrestricted mode

Configuring listener without wake-on-lan

system · February 11, 2010, 9:57pm

(imported comment written by TommyG91)

Same here…

BenKus · February 12, 2010, 5:46am

(imported comment written by BenKus)

I found this from a support case with one of our customers:

‘It turned out that the servers were newly build with a “Secure Image” that locked down Port 52311 (among others). Once this port was opened up again, all was well.’

Does that help anyone?

Ben

system · April 7, 2010, 6:02pm

(imported comment written by SystemAdmin)

I am also having the same issue on several boxs, I tried installing client version 7.2.4.60… same issue

this is a Windows x32 STD SP2, no firewall or security settings,

I did see that the

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\BigFix\EnterpriseClient\GlobalOptions

RegCount is getting incremented

system · April 22, 2010, 2:23am

(imported comment written by arpotu91)

Hello All,

This problem is still occurring on a small (growing) number of our machines, and even if it isn’t a Bigfix problem, per se, I really need to know what’s going on here.

The BES client is intercepting an error of some type, then displaying the error message we see. Is it possible we could see a list of errors which could trigger this log entry? I don’t mind doing the footwork of digging around in the server configs manually, but I need a place (places) to start.

Possibilities I can think of include:

Registry Size Limit
Firewall/AV restriction
GPO restriction (or other server policy)
Registry permissions (non local admin account)
Registry write throttling (lots of writes might be causing the OS/firewall/3rdPtyTool to throttle due to suspicious behavior). Hmm… does the number of checked “things” change the number of times Bigfix writes to the registry?

… on #1, this article exists http://support.microsoft.com/kb/292726, which states that the size limitations on registry for 2003 have been removed. I suspect this is after a patch is laid down to remove that limitation? I have been looking for a tool to tell me the size of the registry (sorry, Bigfix can’t do it, since the client won’t run). Does anyone have a suggestion (which isn’t laden with spyware or related)?

FYI, we have a server here which is a prime example to test, since as of about 2 days ago it started getting the error, but has been running just fine for the past year or so. I suspect some limit was just exceeded.

Thanks,

Arpotu.

BenKus · April 22, 2010, 4:26am

(imported comment written by BenKus)

Hey arpotu,

I don’t think we know what the issue is… The error message indicates the agent can’t write the reg key “RegCount” at “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\BigFix\EnterpriseClient\GlobalOptions”. Perhaps see if you can change that reg value manually and see if you get an error?

Ben

system · April 22, 2010, 6:37am

(imported comment written by arpotu91)

It has worked in the past, but I will give it another shot. In the BES Client code, can you tell me what error is making the client write that particular error string to the log? Or, is it just the error code that’s returned from the external registry write call? If it were the “external” latter, I suspect I would see that specific error when I google for it

much

more often than, er, this one Bigfix forum thread…

It should be simple to search the source for the string, if that’s where it’s located.

Then again, I could be entirely oversimplifying it

Arpotu.

system · April 22, 2010, 4:34pm

(imported comment written by TommyG91)

FYI, I’m able to make changes to those registry entries. Plus, I’ve run RegMon and see NO ‘access denied’ to the besclient when trying to write there. Just for giggles, I gave “everyone” full control to that key, and same behavior. I don’t believe it’s a permissions error.

Tom